Smanuna is an internationally-recognized conservationist and snow leopard specialist. For years he has tracked, rescued, and engaged with wild snow leopards as part of his career in Hemis National Park in India where he serves as wildlife guard; alongside Khenrab Phuntsog he is considered one of the foremost non-academic experts on snow leopard behavior.

Smanuna has published several books including Amchi Pharmaco Therapeutic and Ancient Materia Medica as well as numerous papers presented at international seminars. He is well known as an expert in Himalayan Medicine and Traditional Tibetan System of Medicine with extensive research undertaken. He also is renowned for being a dynamic public speaker.

Ladakh, known by many as ‘Little Tibet,’ shares many features with Tibet such as landscape and Buddhist culture. Situated at 2400m between the Great Himalayan Range, Indus-Shyok confluence, Zanskar river valley in the south.

Buddhism recognizes suffering (ma rig pa) as an inherent aspect of beings living the cycle of rebirth, making the Buddha the supreme physician and medicine an integral component of dharma as a means to liberation. Therefore it comes as no surprise that its classic texts contain numerous medical metaphors including illness being caused by three fundamental poisons – attachment or desire (dod chags), animosity or animusity (zhe sdang) and mental obscuration (gti mug). Additionally, its three humours rlung, MKHRIS-pa and bad-kan (wind or pneuma, Bile and Phlegm) are also explained using these obfuscations.